Friendly URL - Parameters Order - Does it Matter?

[=IceBurn=]

Hi!

Every time I develop a website or wapsite, I set everything up with friendly URL's (Mod Rewrite).

But recently I've come up with this question...
I really want to push SEO to the maximum in my (almost finished) project, and at the moment I have URL's like this:

http://mysite.com/just-random-title/55/p2/

OK, that's just an example, but the real question here is this, what's better, appending the ID's (like 55 in the example above) and pagination (like the p2 in the example above) right after the domain, or leave them at the ending?

Basically what I'm trying to resolve is whats the best URL, and I'm not just worried about google and other search engines, I also wanted to know in what URL people would pick.

For example, supposing you wanted to know about "Programming PHP with Security", what URL would you pick up:

A) http://mysite.com/programming-php-with-security/55/p2/
B) http://mysite.com/55/p2/programming-php-with-security/

A or B?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[SEO-Angels]

In my opinion, the perfectly optimised Url wouldn't contain any numerical page ID's as they do not contribute at all to your SERP ranking. I optimise mine as example.com / category / page title

So, for your example it would be...

mysite.com / php / programming-php-with-security

I find that this way is comprehensible for both users and the SERP's...

Hope this helps...

[=IceBurn=]

In my opinion, the perfectly optimised Url wouldn't contain any numerical page ID's as they do not contribute at all to your SERP ranking. I optimise mine as example.com / category / page title

So, for your example it would be...

mysite.com / php / programming-php-with-security

I find that this way is comprehensible for both users and the SERP's...

Hope this helps...

Hi SEO-Angels.

Well, I can't argue with that, you absolutely right, but I really need to combine performance too.

I know I could query the SQL table for the title instead of the ID, but that would not be very friendly for my server's RAM memory and I would lose performance.

So I really need to pass the ID's in the URL and also the pagination.

Anyway, thank you for your opinion.

[thing2b]

I would go with only one of the following:

A) http://mysite.com/php-security-2
B) http://mysite.com/55/p2/

If you have all your articles in a database like you should, it should not be hard for you to look them up with an index and the "random-title" string.

The url "programming-php-with-security/55/p2/" is really too long. If you mention php, people can guess it is programming and the word "with" is not adding anything.

I admit that a page number should be ok, as a single page can get too long so that is why I would settle on:

http://mysite.com/php-security-2

If you can not have your system performing fast with the url above, your system has a design fault.

[=IceBurn=]

Hi thing2b!

My project is a complex forum service, so I'm not really picking up the titles, and it will be serving hundreds of members with hundreds and hundreds of registered users, that's why I need to be very careful about memory usage, I'm already using an overall of 800MB RAM serving guestbooks.

As you should know, picking an integer is a lot faster that pick a single letter, even setting the title as a MySQL index.

So, I'm talking about something *big*, where many forums will be hosted in my server, not just a personal blog or so.

But I liked your idea for the pagination, I may use it instead of "/p2/".

Thank you for your opinion.

[thing2b]

Hi thing2b!

My project is a complex forum service, so I'm not really picking up the titles, and it will be serving hundreds of members with hundreds and hundreds of registered users, that's why I need to be very careful about memory usage, I'm already using an overall of 800MB RAM serving guestbooks.

As you should now, picking an integer is a lot faster that pick a single letter, even setting the title as a MySQL index.

So, I'm talking about something *big*, where many forums will be hosted in my server, not just a personal blog or so.

But I liked your idea for the pagination, I may use it instead of "/p2/".

Thank you for your opinion.

As a bit of a side comment / question, if you have that many requests, are you caching most of your pages?

[=IceBurn=]

No. I'm not caching pages, because I don't want to, in fact I implicit no-cache in the headers.
However, I do cache images, use different sub-domains for media files and also use a PHP opcode cacher.

[krendion]

I have 1850 google searches last month and the top 50 are all long keywords.. not even available at trackers...

Good inspection. I've very similar data.

[goodmast3r]

http://mysite.com/programming-php-with-security

[angilina]

I suggest you do not worry about URLs, as they do not count much. The real thing that matters is the content of your site and the backlinks your site have. You can have any URL structure you want to, it will make no [if it does make nay difference, then it is so little that you can neglect it] difference.

[=IceBurn=]

http://mysite.com/programming-php-with-security

Yes, that would be the perfect URL, but as I said above I really need to pass one ID and pagination in the URL.

angilina, at the moment I'm thinking more about a "standard" URL, user friendly, than a search engine friendly since I now believe both methods already are.

I've seen some examples, like wordpress, usually wordpress URL's have the date right after the domain and the title at the end.

The question now is - what makes more sense to the overall people?